Kendrick marched to where his son reclined and kicked the chair, causing the boy’s feet to fall, startling him awake. Kendrick snatched the hood off the boy’s head, glaring at him. “Wake up. This isn’t a vacation.”
The boy sneered at his father but then seemed to realize they weren’t alone. He turned ocean blue eyes to Thomas, and a shock of awareness rocketed through him. A sullen expression replaced his look of confusion, then he folded his arms over his chest.
Thomas blinked, trying to force his brain to focus on anything other than the boy’s looks. But it was hard. Aiden was…pretty, objectively speaking. That was the only word that came to mind. Model pretty with chiseled cheekbones, full lips, and a shock of wavy blonde hair that fell messily into his eyes.
Thomas swallowed as Aiden gave him a thorough once-over that made him feel a bit uneasy inside. When they locked eyes, Thomas couldn’t look away. He wasn’t even sure he blinked until Kendrick cleared his throat.
“Aiden, this is Dr. Thomas Mulvaney. He’s going to talk to you about what happened. You will answer his questions. Understand?”
Aiden’s gaze flicked to his father, releasing Thomas from the prison of his far too interested stare.
“Sure, Dad,” he said, infusing the words with as much sarcasm as he could seem to muster.
Thomas sat to the boy’s left, clenching his fists in his lap when Aiden returned his full attention to him. Thomas had been face to face with a number of killers in his day. Hundreds, in fact. Some very young, others with a body count that spanned decades, but looking at this boy had him shaken. Literally.
“Leave us,” Thomas said to Kendrick, unwilling to break eye contact with Aiden.
Kendrick hesitated but finally relented. Still, Thomas waited another moment or two before finally opening his mouth to speak. Before he could, Aiden’s tongue poked free of his mouth, licking over his teeth in a gesture that Thomas found both fascinating and disturbing.
“So, you’re him, huh? The psychopath wrangler?” he said, every bit of sarcasm he’d given his father still dripping from his words.
“I am raising a group of children with a very specific psychopathy,” Thomas agreed carefully.
“‘A very specific psychopathy,’” Aiden mocked. “How careful you are, doctor. Are you really even a doctor? You barely look older than me.”
“I assure you I’m far older than I look,” Thomas lied.
“Well, I’m not a psychopath,” Aiden said with an authority Thomas found confusing. “So, you probably wasted a trip.”
“How do you know that?” Thomas asked.
Aiden shrugged, slouching farther in his seat. “I checked.”
Thomas’s lips twitched, amused. “Checked how?”
“I’ve read a lot of books on psychopathy, behavioral profiling. John Douglas, Robert Ressler. I don’t…fit. I can experience guilt. Remorse. Empathy. I have feelings, Dr. Mulvaney.”
“Are you sorry you killed that boy?” Thomas asked, propping his elbow on the arm of the chair, then placing his chin on his fist, studying him.
Aiden once more looked him dead in the eye. “I’m only sorry he didn’t suffer more.”
Thomas blinked at him. “What?”
“He died too quickly,” Aiden said. “I’d hoped to hear him scream. To watch the life drain out of him.”
Goosebumps rose along Thomas’s arms. “Tell me why you did it.”
Aiden shrugged. “Because he wasn’t a good person and he deserved to die.”
Thomas tilted his head. “Why do you believe he wasn’t a good person?”
“Because I’m the one who had to carry the guy he raped and beat near to death to the hospital.”
Thomas processed this information. “How do you know it was him?”
“I saw him. I scared him off. I would have killed him if I caught him, but I had to make a choice: help the guy bleeding to death or kill the guy who caused it. I chose the first one,” Aiden said, jaw muscle twitching. “Not that it mattered in the end.”
Thomas’s brow raised. “Why’s that?”
